What does it mean to teach communicatively?

 It seems a bit odd to me that in 2026 the case still has to be made for Communicative Language Teaching, but here I am making that case!

I first became aware of the Communicative Approach in about 1980. I was trained in the British Oral Approach which was a good deal more communicative than Grammar-Translation, but which was still esentially about getting students to internalise vocabulary and grammar through question-answer and controlled teacher-led activities. You might call it a sort of orally-focused PPP. At that time Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) was gaining ground in the EFL world, as it was known then. Academic influencers of the time were Dell Hymes (who coined the term "communicative competence"), Henry Widdowson, Christopher Brumfitt and Sandra Savignon. Meanwhile, around that time, Stephen Krashen was making waves in the USA with his various hypotheses focused on comprehensible input — another reaction against the traditional grammatical syllabus. Behind both the Communicative and Comprehensible Input  perspectives is a belief that learning a new language is to a considerable extent like learning one's first language(s). 

Anyway, it was this combination of influences which led me to adapt my teaching to some extent. I say 'to some extent', because I was still heavily influenced by my training and ingrained habits are hard to shake off.

So what is meant by "communicative"? To begin with, Hymes (1972) introduced the concept of communicative competence. This means that knowing a language involves more than knowing its vocabulary, phonology and grammar: it means knowing how to use language appropriately to communicate. Canale and Swain (1980) later developed the idea further in their model of communicative competence. Put simply, if we want students to communicate, we need to practise communication.

What about the term Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)? Richards and Rodgers (2014) describe CLT as  “an approach that aims to (a) make communicative competence the goal of language teaching and (b) develop procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication" (Ricahrds and Rogers, 2014). So CLT is an approach in which learners develop their skill with the language substantially through using and understanding it for meaningful purposes.

The word meaningful is significant here. When we communicate in real life, we normally have something we want to find out or something we want another person to know. (I say normally because we all know that what passes for communication doesn't necessraily involve much exchnage of ideas at all!) But let's say there is a purpose to the exchange. This is why the idea of a gap is so useful. The classic example is the information gap. Student A knows something Student B does not. Perhaps they have different versions of a timetable, picture, map or text. To complete the task, they have to exchange information.

There can also be an opinion gap. Which of these holidays would you choose? What do you think of school uniform? Who is the most interesting character in the film? Rank these environmental problems in order of importance. I don’t know exactly what my partner is going to say, so I have a reason to listen and respond.

That small element of unpredictability is fundamental to genuine communication. Language is not being rehearsed as practice (as in a drill, gap-fill, translation, matching task or display questions of the type "Where is the book?"). Bill VanPatten (2014) and others even make a distinction between exercises, activities and tasks. Exercises are like mechanical drills or drill-like question-answer sequences; activities may involve an information gap but are not 'real communication' since the barely didden aim is to practise language forms;  tasks resemble real life exchanges where the use of the language has a goal and the total focus is on meaning. I think it's pretty hard to maintain a clear distinction between these in the classroom.CLT fits rather neatly with what children themselves say they want from language learning. In a 2021 YouGov survey commissioned by the British Council, Year 9 pupils were asked to choose their main reasons for learning a language. The most popular was to communicate with people from other countries and cultures (49%). The pedagogical question remains: how do we get students to be able to communicate?  Classroom experience tells us that we get better at what we practise and that most children are more likely to enjoy a communicative activity than a grammar exercise or memorising vocabulary. With traditional teaching there is just too much delayed gratification.

Does this mean we should abandon grammar teaching, repetition, drills and controlled practice? Not necessarily. William Littlewood (1981) made a useful distinction between pre-communicative and communicative activities. In pre-communicative work, we isolate and practise some of the component skills learners will need: vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and useful chunks of language. This might involve repetition, substitution, question-and-answer practice or other tightly controlled activities. We then move towards activities where learners use these resources to communicate meanings. This is an apoproach which sometimes features in my new book Let's Get Them Talking!

Imagine, for example, a class learning to talk about weekend activities. The teacher might begin by modelling and practising Qu’est-ce que tu as fait samedi ? J’ai joué au foot. Je suis allé(e) en ville. J’ai regardé un film. There might be choral repetition, retrieval practice, sentence completion and tightly controlled paired question-and-answer work. This is useful pre-communicative practice.

Next, pupils could receive two different diaries with missing information. Student A has to ask Student B what Léa did on Saturday afternoon; Student B needs information which only A possesses. Now we have an information gap and a genuine reason to listen.

Finally, pupils might discuss their own weekends, compare what they did and decide who had the most interesting, relaxing or disastrous weekend. Now we have an opinion gap and greater unpredictability.

Not every lesson needs to follow that sequence, of course, but it illustrates how explicit teaching and communicative teaching can work together rather than being seen as opposites.

Another interesting example of communication comes from TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling), associated particularly with Blaine Ray and now in its 2.0 versuion, so I read. One classic TPRS classroom activity is called story-asking where teacher and class co-construct a story through questions: Where does the boy live? Does he have a dog or an elephant? What is the elephant called? Why is it in the bathroom? The teacher supplies comprehensible language and guides the story, but students contribute information, ideas and often absurd details. The outcome is not entirely predetermined. This approach is not unique to TPRS, of course.

Seen in this way, story co-construction is communicative. There is an information or imagination gap; learners listen for meaning and their contributions affect what happens next. It also illustrates that communication does not have to mean putting pupils into pairs and telling them to have a conversation.

An influential development from CLT is Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT). In TBLT, learners use language to achieve a meaningful outcome: solving a problem, reaching a decision, planning something, finding differences, agreeing on a ranking and so on. Ellis (2003, 2009) suggests that a task normally has a primary focus on meaning, contains some kind of gap, requires learners to draw on their linguistic resources and has an outcome beyond simply displaying correct language. Think of Vanpatten's defintion too.

There are stronger and weaker versions of task-based teaching. In a strong version, tasks themselves largely drive the syllabus and language is acquired through performing them. In a weaker, task-supported version, teachers may explicitly teach and practise language first and then use a task to provide a communicative purpose for that language. For many school classrooms, this second interpretation may feel more realistic. That's probably where I would stand as a modern language teacher in a secondary school.

As for DfE-led initiatives in England in recent years (think of NCELP, the TSC Review (Bauckham, 2016) and the notorious three pillars of phonics, vocabulary and grammar, then we are a fair distance away from a communicative approach, even if it is claimed that the ultimate aim is communication. A key takeaway from the TSC Review was:

1. Pupils need to gain systematic knowledge of the vocabulary, grammar, and sound and spelling systems (phonics) of their new language, and how these are used by speakers of the language. They need to reinforce this knowledge with extensive planned practice and use in order to build the skills needed for communication (Bauckham, 2016, Key Recommendation 2)

The danger is that lessons don't actually involve much communication — it's largely about developing declarative knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and sound-spelling correspondences. Communication is delayed in the belief that the explicit knowledge can become implicit or procedural (knowledge can become skill). Research is dubious about this to say the least. Look at Oak Academy resources to see what this approach looks like in practice. These are, to be frank, not the sort of lessons I would enjoy teaching.

What about the question: but to communicate, students need to have a good stock of language to start with? This is often but not always correct. A simple classroom survey or information gap task can be done with very little language knowledge. The answer for me is that, with newer, less proficient students the emphasis is less likely to be communicative, or at least, more pre-communicative activities will be needed.  

I would always be thinking as a teacher: how can I make this lesson communicative? I'd also be trying to get out of the mindset which, instead of producing "I need a lesson on the perfect tense", produces "I need a lesson which gets students listening and talking about..."

To sum up, perhaps the simplest test of a communicative activity is this:

Does the student have a reason to understand or convey a meaning?

If the answer is yes, we probably have genuine communication. If both students already know exactly what the other is going to say, we probably have practice — which may be very useful practice — but it isn’t quite the same thing. Good language teaching probably needs both. How much of each may depend on the context of the teaching — the exam being prepared for, the type of learner, culture of the school, and so on.

My new book Let's Get Them Talking! 50 Communicative French Lessons is available from Amazon.

References

Bauckham, I. (2016). The TSC Review of MFL Pedagogy. Teaching Schools Council. Available at: 

https://pure.york.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/54043904/MFL_Pedagogy_Review_Report_TSC_PUBLISHED_VERSION_Nov_2016_1_.pdf

British Council (2021). Learning Languages. Motivation and Influnces at Year 9.

Available at: https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/learning_languages_-_motivation_and_influences_at_year_9.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Canale, M. & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1–47.

Ellis, R. (2003). Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching. Oxford University Press.

Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In J. B. Pride & J. Holmes (eds), Sociolinguistics. Penguin.

Littlewood, W. (1981). Communicative Language Teaching: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J. C. & Rodgers, T. S. (2014). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press.

VanPatten, B. (2014). While We're on the Topic. ACTFL.